


oh it'll hurt for a while, but it'll stop someday too

by Maarkriifaas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Air Force, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Real World, Alternate Universe - World War II, Homophobic Language, M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5601322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maarkriifaas/pseuds/Maarkriifaas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The residue of a broken love will always survive longer than any happiness it could have brought. If you didn't believe that fact, Erwin and Levi could both testify to it, even though they never should have had to to begin with.</p><p>Life moves on even when we don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh it'll hurt for a while, but it'll stop someday too

The residue of a broken love will always survive longer than any happiness it could have brought. That was the simple fact of it; hurt lives longer than love, hate lives longer than admiration. But somehow, neither one of them had ever hated each other for it, it was just impractical. You couldn't be a faggot in 1935, it wasn't allowed, and you couldn't fall in love in a war. And certainly _not_ with a Wing Commander, not even if you were a pilot too.

 _Especially_ not if you were just an engineer. 

"Doing alright, General?" he asks ever-so-politely, wiping a hand covered in engine grease across his forehead. He places his screwdriver on the floor next to him and slides away from the plane's cockpit for a second to offer his hand. The Commander shakes it anyways, though he notes that he's just as quick to wipe it haughtily on his trousers.

"I've been better. How's the first of the new plane models looking?"

Erwin pats the side of the plane, the metal cold in the early November breeze. "She looks just about ready to fly, sir. Only some final tweaks left," he says, and the dark haired Commander nods his head slowly.

"Good," he states simply. "We're running our first tests tomorrow. Finish your tweaks, and be precise about them. The K5083 _cannot_ fail."

"Yes, sir." Erwin salutes, and he notices a thin-lipped smile that twitches ever so slightly at the Commander's lips.

"Well, I will look forward to flying tomorrow then."

 

°    °    °    °    °

 

"What did you think?" he asks eagerly as soon as the plane has landed. The rest of his team rushes over as well, eyes wide with excitement at their success. "Was it good? Did it fly smoothly? How did it handle-"

"It was good." The Commander shrugs his goggles off and meets Erwin's eyes with an indifferent stare. "It is a relatively standard plane, but I feel already it will be important to us in this war. Tell your team they did well in designing it."

"Sir, with all due respect," one of the younger members of his crew says, "we'd like you to name it." The boy is small, blonde, easily the smartest on Erwin's team though, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He's obviously too young to be employed in the army, but like so many other boys here, he''s lied to get in anyways.

"Hm," the Commander says, hesitating as he stares foreignly at it. "I'd have to think about that. Smith will relay the information to the rest of you when I decide."

"Yes, sir," Erwin repeats, a bit stiffly. The pilot hands him his gloves and helmet, and motions for him to walk with him. Erwin bobs along behind, follows him around a corner and down a hallway. The minute they reach the storage room though, the Commander is on him like a lion closing in on its prey. He forces his hands to the wall, making him drop his equipment, and Erwin can feel his breath catch in his throat.

"You had even _me_ fooled back there you know," Levi purrs into his ear. "You sounded like you actually gave two shits about the plane, as if. As if you couldn't build another within the day, knowing you."

"Of course I cared about the plane," Erwin breathes. "I cared about what it carried much more though," he says, and suddenly they've switched places, Levi's stomach pressed flat against the wall while Erwin fumbles at his pants, inhaling the scent of his body and the sweat on his neck, admiring how handsome his hair is even when it's windswept and matted like it is now. How his hands crumble and push and catch at the screws and dents in the metal and how easily he falls apart for Erwin.

"Quiet," Levi whispers into the metal. He turns around for a moment, and Erwin feels his heart hammering against his ribs with both want and thrill. A quick, messy kiss before Levi's face is buried in his shoulder again and his fingers are left clenching at Erwin's worn clothes. "They can't find us."

"They won't find us," Erwin assures him, and Levi relaxes a little, enough to left Erwin in again. The same way he always has, he's able to slip by him, past the most guarded parts of himself to the true chaotic hurricane in his heart.

"Hurricane," Levi repeats to himself. "It'll be the Hurricane."

"The name suits it," Erwin says halfmindedly. "Suits you."

Levi grins back up at him. "Imagine the other pilots if they found out their planes were named because of _this,_ " he says, and Erwin can't help but laugh.

 

°    °    °    °    °

 

Well-hidden years fly by. Levi is shot down once, but he survives, barely. Even so he only loses his right foot at the ankle from severe burns and crushing, but the stump is badly scarred up to the knee and well past it. It happened when he was flying a Meteor, another one of Erwin's designs, and Erwin never stops blaming himself for the flimsy model.

One day they sit down together, a long conversation passes. There's yelling, a lot of yelling in fact. Murmurs and rumours start, the Commander and the engineer that had gotten along so well before were at each other's throats. Erwin is the first to say it; they can't keep doing this when one of them could die. Levi flies anyways, his passion for planes didn't die even when he almost did. Erwin repeats, Levi ignores. Eventually the two stop yelling, and then they stop talking.

By then, the war is almost over though. Despite his handicap, Levi is still a striking young man in his early thirties, and Erwin borders on forty now, feeling older than ever. He's past the age for marriage, but the following year, Levi weds a thin, faceless, and nameless red haired girl. Erwin doesn't know much more about how she looks because Erwin looks at her as little as possible. Erwin leaves the reception early without giving a reason. 

The residue of a broken love will always survive longer than any happiness it could have brought. If you didn't believe that fact, Erwin and Levi could both testify to it, even though they never should have had to to begin with.

Because Levi doesn't want to marry her either, Levi is still fixated on his tall, blonde boyfriend, regardless of how wonderful his parent's friend's daughter is. Regardless of how rich she is. He marries her anyways because he knows it will keep him safe, keep him from being rolled in a carpet and burned alive, from being lynched in the tree behind his house. Though they're less frequent than before, hate crimes still happen, and justice turns a blind eye. They have four children together.

Erwin grows older, watching from a distance. Levi sees him sometimes, straw hair fringing on grey now. His work as an engineer has always kept him fit before, but he sees the droop in his arms, the tiredness of his eyes, the formless sick drawing his lifeforce from him.

1957 rolls around, and Erwin finally weds a girl twenty years younger than him. The relationship is scandalous, _a pretty girl for a pretty penny,_ they would say. No matter either way, because 1957 has no more space for faggots than 1935 had. He has one child, born a year later. _A_ _handsome boy who resembles his father,_ they would say. His wife dies in childbirth. Erwin does not remarry.

Levi's children have grown up slightly, his youngest has now turned seven. His oldest is twelve and a half. Erwin does not lose sight of him through time, his own son growing quickly. Months turn into years and years fade into a decade. Levi's wife dies suddenly and violently, nobody knows why. The disease that struck her quickly takes one of the middle children as well, leaving the four remaining members broken.

Still, Levi and Erwin do not talk. Erwin hears of what happened, he pays his respects in a neat note he tucks in with the mail one day, but no words are spoken. The two cross paths occasionally, a blur in the grand picture of life. After all, what had happened then is over. This wasn't 1935 anymore.

 

°    °    °    °    °

 

Finally, it's 1996. Erwin is old, his son a decade and a half over the age Erwin was when the war had started. Erwin finds himself in the park more and more often, staring out over the cemetery in front of him from his favourite bench. A few of his friends are buried here, and when he dies, he intends to be too.

"Erwin," he hears from behind him, and turns to face the noise. Levi stands there, barely, his prosthetic leg bent and causing him to lean to the right.

"Commander," he jokes, and Levi frowns at him.

"I never liked it when you called me that you know," he says, and Erwin only smiles.

"I know."

A silence passes between them, then;

"I'm going to die soon."

"Oh?" Erwin asks. "How can you be so sure? You're only 75 you know. Still in your prime," he jokes, but Levi's still grimacing in pain as he bends to sit down.

"Trust me," Levi assures, resting on the bench beside him. "I know myself well."

"Not like I knew you," Erwin grumbles slightly, but eases his expression a moment later. That was the past after all. "You could have come back in the 80's you know. No one would have stopped us then."

"I know." Levi leans back into the bench, then shifts so he's on Erwin's shoulder. Erwin pats his head like he used to when he couldn't fall asleep. Back when Levi heard the screams and still felt the burning. "It didn't feel right though. I couldn't lie to her, even if I didn't love her the same way. Even when I forced myself."

Erwin remains silent, even though he understands.

"How's it been then, Old Man? The last fifty years or so I mean?"

"It's been alright," Erwin says. His voice is monotone.

"You design any new planes?"

"I worked on the Avro Arrow after. Not directly but I wrote letters with a guy."

"Impressive," Levi says, and he picks imaginary dust off his coat. He pauses, then says, "Look, I came to see you before because I see how you look at that cemetery, and I know you're close to the end too, alright? I didn't want to leave the past in the past anymore."

"Alright," Erwin says quietly.

"Are we alright?" Levi asks.

"I guess we are," he nods. He wishes it could have been different, but it's too late for that now. Black and blonde fade to white and grey, while some of their scars didn't fade at all. For fifty years all he wanted was the past he was denied, to have been born in a place where they would have been alright to begin with.

But after all, life moves on even when we don't.

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys
> 
> this might come out of nowhere, (and warning for triggers, it gets dark really fast) but I've actually been having a really rough time the last little while. consider this fic a way of me kind of letting it out, the details are rather long and messy and very much personal. I'm also fairly certain other parties involved wouldn't want me speaking about it directly, so needless to say there's gonna be a lot of unanswered questions and I'm sorry about that in advance
> 
> for one thing: I'm fairly certain I might be being stalked online, I don't know by who yet. that's been really worrying me a lot and obviously it's NOT GOOD for my mental health. for another, two of my good friends just tried to take their own lives and one succeeded so I'm really a bit of a mess obviously. and of course then you've got another recent issue on my hands which is also a mess that I can't really divulge into further.
> 
> I don't know so much right now and I feel like I'm losing it, and that everything I write, what I make, what I am is just some cry into an eternal dark, like I've become so insignificant even on earth even without the rest of the universe to compare myself to, even to the people who love me a lot I feel useless. I can't make them smile anymore, I can't do my job as their friend to make sure they're happy, there's so many ways I've become useless to them and this is just another cry to nothing because I know they won't read this. I've considered all sorts of foul stuff lately, cutting, suicide, etc, but to be perfectly honest I'm too much of a coward to even be able to do that, I'm afraid I'll hurt them all even more. I looked at online help and became a listener on 7cups for a while to see if that would make me feel better and it did for a while but so many of my members are disappearing and I can't do anything for them anymore. I need to find myself for a little, I just need to leave everything for a while, make some random internet friends, do something crazy, go crane climbing or something with my friends next time they go out, maybe find a really impermanent s/o just to fuck shit up together, someone who;s a best friend who'd double as someone who'd also hug me and maybe be willing to just sit together for a while but who'd also be able to disappear when all's said and done. something fucked up like that for a while, just to get away.
> 
> anyway, all that to say that I probably will disappear for a long while and I'm sorry because I feel like I've let you all down too, the amazing people who follow me and leave supportive comments and the people who don't deserve having to put up with this side of me, because I am not the same person you think I am online and I'm sorry I'm not I'm sorry I can't be and please forgive me
> 
> thank you I'll probably post pistanthrophobia soon anyways though because the draft is almost expired  
> I love you all so much thank you thank you so so much for your support and understanding again  
> \- Rose


End file.
